


casting shadows on my face

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 13:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13881978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Oscar night. (Except an au because I wrote it before Bryony confirmed she was there.)





	casting shadows on my face

**Author's Note:**

> "feel I'm on the verge of some great truth / here I'm finally in my place  
> but I'm fumbling still for proof / and it's cluttering my space"
> 
> \- [wait](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFPVF9J9Wmo) by alexi murdoch

"Do you want to have people over?" Phil asks. 

Dan thinks about it. He really does. He thinks about getting dressed up and making food and fancy cocktails. He thinks about their friends, the people he well and truly likes. 

He thinks of how much of his time lately is spent feeling like he's got to keep the wild threads of his mind and his moods sewn together, how close it is to unraveling. 

He thinks of how exhausting people can be - the people who aren't Phil. He thinks of how comfortable pajamas are, and how nice it is to curl himself up next to Phil without anyone else's eyes on them. The relief is immediate, relief at escaping plans that weren't even made yet. 

"Nah," Dan says, feigning something casual. "Let's be bums." 

Phil lets him pretend this is all in stride, the same way he doesn't push it or act disappointed when Phil turns down the offer to visit friends for a weekend or dinner invitations. 

Maybe the cocktails anyway, though. 

* 

"Why we have to be fancy if we're being bums?" Phil whines, kicking an impertinent foot out at Dan. 

Dan grabs it and shakes it. "Because it's the fucking Oscars, bitch." 

Phil sticks a lower lip out. "My bottoms are movie themed." 

"I should divorce you for even implying that emojis are in any way appropriate Oscar pajama party attire." 

"But there was an emoji movie!" 

"No, there was ninety-one minute mass hallucination brought on by the wrath of Steve Jobs in hell." Dan drops Phil's foot. "Get dressed in something appropriate or no dessert." 

Phil's jaw drops. "You can't keep me from the sweets, you're not my mum!" 

"And that's a good thing, because if so then what I did to you this morning-" 

"Dan!" Phil screeches, rolling halfway off the couch and managing to catch himself in a controlled sort of crouch-fall position. "Shut up! You can't talk about my mum and, and-" 

"Blowjobs?" 

"I hate you," Phil says, poking Dan with one finger in the shoulder as he walks by. 

*

Dan sets out four little bowls. One has crisps, one has salsa, one has edible gold glitter dusted marshmallows, and one has a mix of shiny foil wrapped chocolates. 

There's also popcorn, but Dan's a wise man who knows not to bring that out until the show actually starts. 

The buzzer for the door goes. "Get that?" Dan shouts out. 

"I'm naked," Phil shouts back. 

"Good," Dan calls back, refusing to give in and face a stranger on this of all holy days. "We won't have to tip." 

*

He's keeping up text message conversations with three different people, two of which are group chats that Phil is also in and the third of which is his grandmother. She's got very passionate opinions, and shockingly enough quite a few of them align exactly with Dan's. 

"I get my good taste from her," Dan says. 

"And your looks from your dad," Phil says back, staring at his own phone. "Who is me." 

"Daddy," Dan says back, just to watch Phil's face screw up in disgust. "You literally started it." 

"Your mum started it," Phil says, reaching out to slap ineffectually at Dan. 

"If by it you mean my dismal existence on this plane, then technically she did," Dan says. "With you. If you're my Dad." 

"I mean." Phil pauses, looking up slightly. "Your mum's fit. I might." 

"You disgust me as a human being," Dan informs him. "Also, no you wouldn't because you still think girls have cooties." 

"I do not," Phil says, but this one he fights a lot less. "You're just nicer than all of them, that's all." 

"... shut up," Dan says, but he's smiling and it's obvious between the two of them who really knows how to play their cards right.

*

It was always going to come to this. It's an inevitability of life, a pattern they fight to break out of. But some forces in life are too strong to be overcome, and this is one of them. 

Phil is asleep with three cocktails and half a pizza in his belly, a duo that will always reduce him to this. 

He's got his arms around Dan and his head on Dan's shoulder, whistling through his nose. His weight on Dan is warm and comfortable but Dan's got to wee and there's an award on he doesn't particularly care that much about so he shifts Phil's weight over and whispers, "Bathroom," when Phil sits. 

When he gets back Phil's moved on his own, over a bit to the side of the sofa and picked up a cushion to cradle against him. Dan can predict that Phil tried to wake up, that he moved and maybe sat up so he'd be alert when Dan got back. But he's asleep again already and secretly Dan doesn't mind that at all. 

He gets to take the pictures, after all. He gets to take this thing he sees every night, has seen every night for almost a decade, and show the world just for a second. 

Because it's funny, tonight - it's the circumstances around it. It's just a dumb picture. It's just a running gag for the internet. But it also makes Dan's heart feel full to watch that picture be sent out into the universe and know he's got ownership of it. It takes a few of those stray threads in his mind and tucks them back into place, even if just for now. 

* 

Dan leaves the flutes in the sink to be hand washed in the morning. He rinses out the popcorn bowl and puts way the pizza leftovers and puts the chocolate somewhere that might pass as a hiding spot for all of twelve hours before Phil uses his superhuman sugar sniffing skills to dig it out. 

Then he makes his way on tired legs down to the bedroom. Phil's already there, but to Dan's surprise he's not asleep. He's looking at his phone and smiling a quiet, small little smile. "You're awful," Phil says, voice full of fondness. 

"I'm the worst," Dan agrees, stepping out of his pants and crawling into bed. There's a wave of near giddiness at how nice the mattress feels underneath him. "No alarm, right?" 

"No alarm," Phil confirms. They worked on a Sunday, their sacred day of rest, to be able to have an off day on Monday. 

It's probably a bad idea. Dan can already tell. He'll sleep too long and he'll not want to get out of bed. He'll wake disoriented in the afternoon and spend the entire day in a cloud. He'll feel guilt after the fact over blowing off their friends. He'll maybe sulk and stomp about, and Phil will try to keep his patience and probably mostly succeed. 

Nothing ever feels like a clear cut good day or a bad day anymore. Everything feels weighed down by layers now that he's seen the worst and he's also felt what it feels like to overcome that. 

It's just - no one ever told him overcoming it was something he'd have to do every single day of his life. 

"Dan," Phil says softly. The light of his phone goes off and he puts it beside the bed. "Do you need..." 

Dan needs a lot of things. Five in the morning isn't a good hour for him. He's sickeningly grateful Phil is awake, too. "Turn over," he says, and fits himself to the shape of Phil when they're both on their sides. He presses his face against the back of Phil's head and wraps his arms tight and starts to take mental catalog of all the things he can hear, feel, smell. Physical grounding senses that bring him back down to earth. 

It was a good night. It was a normal night, just him and Phil. That’s all he’d wanted, and he got exactly that. He might not remember it five years from now. It might not be a memory lined in gold. But the things that stand out never feel good to Dan, even when they are. The most solace anyone can give him is momentary contentment, and that's what Phil gives him in tiny doses every single day of their lives. 

The bed feels good. The duvet is heavy against him. Phil is warm. 

It was a _good_ night.

Drowsiness was never too far off. He whispers one soft goodnight that's met with a snore, and falls asleep as the sun comes up.


End file.
